Thursday, 30 June 2011

Speak or Scan - Tesco Groceries for Android launches

Yes, I know, you've wanted this app to launch for a long time. But the management team, designers and developers were patient, considered, and did things right so that we could launch an app to be proud of.
So take my hand and let's journey together through the delights of this android application. Would you like to be downloading while we walk? Sure, follow this link.

We start with the opening screen. with the various options for searching for products listed - including barcode scanning using the phone's camera:

However our team always likes to get better with each version of the app, so here we introduce voice searching for the first time:

Many customers of our other grocery apps love the concept of capturing their sudden thoughts of grocery products they need, even if they have no mobile signal, so here is the android recreation of the shopping list. Once you have a signal, tap what you have typed and a text search for that product will take place:

For all our customers who love to shop by department / aisle / shelf, of course this app caters for you too:

Here are your favourites - all product search results look like this, allowing you to see all products matching your search request, and a filtered view of just those on special offer. Once a product is in your basket, that same product has a green background if it appears in any search results:

Here is your basket:

...and you can choose a delivery slot at any time from a formatted view that can see up to three weeks ahead:

Congratulations are due to loads of people from the design prowess of Ribot, our fantastic new in-house mobile development team led by Hilda and Owen, and of course our amazing product owners for mobile, Annabel and Becky.

You'll find the Tesco Groceries app in the Android Marketplace, so download and enjoy!

13 comments:

Has that first picture been photo-shopped to add your name?! If not then the font for Lansley is the wrong size and a few pixels out of position. Looks like a great app though - well done to all involved.

Really like the app. Thing I'd like to see added is to almost be able to use the shopping list feature in reverse so I can use it in store. Basically be able to scan items or search specific products in the database and add them to the shopping list along with a guide total at the bottom so that I can make a list of specific products before I go to store, get an idea of how much it'll cost and tick them off as I go round (sort of like an amalgamation of the list and basket components. Throw in a scan-able clubcard as well and it'll be perfect (well almost, in-store GPS like the Romford trial would be really perfect, but that's probably being too picky) ;o)

I'd like to use this app but unfortunately I can't seem to install it. I get either the "is incompatible with your device" message or the "app is not available in your country" error. I'm definitely in the UK, so I assume that it uses some android feature that does not exist on my Asus Transformer TF101 (which is a honeycomb tablet, not a phone).

Could you let me know what features the app requires, or revise them so it works on my tablet?

The Tesco Groceries app is not listed on Android Market if you are using an Galaxy Tab. Instead you have to download the Grocery Shopper app which, even though it is not developed by Tesco, seems curiously identical, and suggests that the supposed in-house development is not quite as in-house as it claims.

Please could you remove the Market restriction that prevents the app from being installed on an original Samsung Galaxy Tab running Android 2.3? There appears to be no technical reason for it as the apk can be side-loaded onto the Tab and it runs very well, arguably better than on a phone because of the larger screen size! It's a shame the app can't be installed directly from the Market.

Favourites screen - it obviously needs quite a bit of work, alot like the website which shows similar errors that are ignored and customer service stick 2 fingers up down the phone to you.

Going back to your screen shot if searching for milk and the results how cheese you know that the delivery is going to be late and the food gone off.

I'm sticking to instore shopping to avoid the human errors that plague the website, but like to access all the stores sites to decipher the smoke and mirrors pricing which all the supermarkets play at.

One day I'll get round to writing a script to show the real shelf price of products highlighting the made up price increases that prefix the Price Cuts/Roll backs etc that litter store shelfs.

As this blog grows in readership - and because it carries the Tesco brand - I have had to become more careful about the sort of comments that are acceptable. The good news is that I'm a champion of free speech so please be as praising or as critical as you wish! The only comments I DON'T allow through are:

1. Comments which criticise an individual other than myself, or are critical of an organisation other than Tesco.This is simply because they cannot defend themselves so is unfair and possibly libellous. Comments about some aspect of Tesco being better/worse than another equivalent organisation are allowed as long as you start by saying "in my personal opinion.." or "I think that...". ... followed by a "...because.." and some reasoned argument.

2. Comments which are totally unrelated to the context of the original article.If I have written about a mobile app and you start complaining about the price of potatoes then your comment isn't going stay for long!